Awa mini-blog (From the Sales and Publicity Desk)
E-dilemma16/ 4 / 10; 3:10:42 PMThere's been a lot of talk about e-readers and e-books lately. Not that long ago Apple announced the iPad, and it was recently released in the US. New Zealand seems to be left out of the e-reader game, with neither the iPad nor its strong competitor the Kindle being available here. E-readers leave me conflicted however. I'm a gadget geek so I want the new shiny toy. On the other hand, I love books - how they look, how they feel, how they smell. I worked in a bookstore once and one of my favourite parts was the new-book-smell that permeated everything. So where does that leave me with e-books, with their less physical presence? I'll give the iPad a go when it's available here - it's pretty, and it does a lot more than just e-books; and there are a few books that are only available as e-books. But I'll tell you right now that if I love a book, even if I own it in e-book format I'll own it in its traditional form as well. Gadgets come and go but books I'll always love. On the big screen23/ 9 / 09; 11:59:29 AMWe just recently got in the first shipment of 100 Essential New Zealand Films by Hamish McDouall. I took a copy home with me a few nights ago and ended up getting into a discussion about NZ movies with my friends. The popular opinion seemed to be that a lot of New Zealand movies are depressing. I'll admit to not having watched many of the movies in the book myself so I'm not really qualified to make a call on this. My mates have decided that I must watch Whale Rider, In My Father's Den, and Out of the Blue (all of which are included in the book) in order to rectify my decidedly lacking experience of NZ films. So far I've seen Whale Rider and I think this project is off to a good start because I thoroughly enjoyed it, though I didn't find it as depressing as I was lead to believe it was going to be. Definitely I agree that it deserves a place in the book, and I'm interested to watch more of Hamish's picks. My question to anyone reading this: which of the movies in Hamish's book do you think I should watch next? Pick up a copy of 100 Essential New Zealand Films and let me know at publicity@awapress.com Rock on NZ31/ 8 / 09; 11:32:44 AMComing from the States, I didn't used to be very familiar with New Zealand pop music. That's changed a lot in the last month. I'm spending much of my time on photo research for Nick Bollinger's new book 100 Essential New Zealand Albums. There isn't any way to do this without soaking up a lot of knowledge about all sorts of different types of bands from NZ music history. Which is excellent, because I've come across some really great music that I might not have heard otherwise. Either Nick has really good taste or NZ music is just good in general. Either way the book has opened my eyes. |
|